Paper tariffs deal blow to the economy

People and paper. That’s what it takes to publish a newspaper, the old saw goes.

There are other requirements — printing presses and ink — and additional costs related to digital-news production.

But next to the price of employing people — salaries and benefits — paper remains the second-largest individual cost of a publishing company such as GateHouse Media, the parent company of The News Herald.

And that is one of the reasons we are concerned about the tariffs imposed on a certain type of paper imported from Canada into the United States. Known as uncoated groundwood paper, the product is used for newsprint, the cost of which has risen in the U.S. as a result of the tariffs.

News organizations fear, rationally, that rising newsprint costs related to the tariffs will force publishers to cut people or paper, or raise costs to consumers — or a combination of all three.

We recognize our financial interest in this matter, but none of those outcomes would be good for the workers, readers, advertisers and communities that depend on professional journalism published in print, as so many subscribers still desire, or in digital form.

Papers and magazines published by nonprofit organizations are suffering the effects as well.

And it’s not just about newspapers: Uncoated groundwood paper is used in books, directories, writing pads and advertising brochures.

The tariffs — technically, anti-dumping and countervailing duties — were initiated by the U.S. Department of Commerce in response to a petition by one paper producer in Washington state. North Pacific Paper Co. (NORPAC), which has fewer than 300 employees and is owned by a hedge fund, alleged the Canadian government subsidizes paper exports.

The Commerce Department agreed and imposed the two duties — combined, ranging up to 32 percent — preliminarily in January and March. Final determinations are pending.

The newspaper industry is mobilizing opposition, but it’s not alone. A small but bipartisan group in Congress has asked Commerce to lift the tariffs. We hope the Florida congressional delegation will join them, not solely for the benefit of newspapers, but because of the negative, overall economic impacts.

Most notable among the opponents is the American Forest and Paper Association.

“The uncoated groundwood and newsprint market is a North American market, and AF&PA has opposed the request for duties to be imposed on imports from Canada,” said the association’s chief executive, Donna Harman. Imports are necessary, in part, because many U.S. companies abandoned newsprint production in favor of products with higher profit margins.

Nevertheless, consider this: Two of the leading Canadian producers have a total of nearly 4,000 U.S. employees, more than 13 times the number of NORPAC, the petitioner.

More than 600,000 workers in the U.S. are employed in the publishing, printing and paper-producing industries that overwhelmingly oppose the tariffs because of their potential to kill jobs and depress economic activity.

A version of this editorial first appeared in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, a News Herald sister paper with GateHouse Media.